This article is within the scope of WikiProject Zoroastrianism, which is a collaboration of editors who thrive to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Zoroastrianism-related topics. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of objectives.

Using the names of pagan gods for the name of the Christian God when translating the Bible into other languages![edit]

Under the section Abrahamic Religions/Christianity, an editor says,"In the effort to translate the Bible into every language (see SIL), the Christian God has usually been named after a pagan or philosophical concept that was present in the language before Christianity."
No evidence has been provided for this statement. Is the writer perhaps confusing the concept 'god' with the actual personal name of the supreme deity as revealed/recorded in the Bible?--Lepton6 (talk) 16:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to ask why Hare Krishna continues to be added to the "Main articles" line. I don't think it should, and here is why:

This is a Vaishnavamantra, but the article section respects multiple traditions and is not solely based on the Vaishnava perspective, so it can hardly be considered a main or primary article of the section.

While the mantra is recited by multiple Vaishnava traditions, it is venerated in particular as the primary (or one of the primary) mantra for one tradition, Gaudiya Vaishnavism. The section, again, represents much more than one single Vaishnava tradition.

The mantra is specifically recognized (and made famous in the Western world by) one organization within Gaudiya Vaishnavism, ISKCON, which is a single organization within a single tradition that does not represent Hinduism as a whole. Again, this is another reason why the single mantra is not a good representative for the section as a "Main article".

The mantra venerates just three names of Vishnu (or two names of Vishnu and one of Radha, depending on which traditions one is from) whereas there are countless other names. (See Vishnu Sahasranama for just one example that lists one thousand names.) In fact, it is said within Vaishnava traditions that there are an infinite number of names. Three among these (two of which who are named in the section itself) would not be representative of the section as the "Main article".

There are countless other mantras within the Vaishnava traditions that venerates Vishnu/Krishna or associated names, such as Om Namo Narayana, as well as within other traditions of Hinduism such as Shaivism where Om Nama Shivaya is a common mantra. What makes one more notable than the rest?

This is a Hinduism section within a Names of God article, not a "Hindu mantras" section within a "Prayers" or "Hymns" article. A single mantra would not be a main article for this section, but rather a list of names such as Sahasranama, which is already listed as one of the main articles.

For these reasons I disagree with the placement of the article as a "Main article" within the section. --Shruti14talk • sign 14:07, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely Shruti it is not representative as to the Hinduism as a whole, nor it should be, as it was not "the main article", but just a See also pointer: Hare Krishna is notable as one of Hindu traditions that is specifically orineted and centered on Nama (or the name) and it is not strictly speaking a mantra (that in Hinduism would start with (Om, Klim, Hrim or other seed sounds, such as Om namah narayana, Klim krishna govindaya, etc.,) and thus should remain as See also, mainly due to its popularity in the Western or English speaking world and being specifically the names of God not 'a mantra'. Sahasranama is also not the 'main' article as per your revision[1], but is about a specific concept of 1000 names of a god or a goddess, thus is also should remain in the See also line.

Hare Krishna is the most prominent form of chanting the "Holy Names" of Krishna. [2] and "Names of God" [3] If the Sahasranama was changed to Names of God in Hinduism and thus became main article, Hare Krishna will still remain a See also. At the moment they are both See also and lets keep Sahasranama article first, since its more generic. Hare Krishna should remain Wikidās ॐ 14:59, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Shruti, it should not be a 'main article' for the Hinduism section, any more than the other names of God. ~ priyanathtalk 04:49, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Even as a "See Also" link, it's giving undue weight to one particular mantra or nama that is primarily venerated by one specific group. Also, I disagree that the Google search links provided prove that Hare Krishna is the "most prominent form of chanting the 'Holy Names' of Krishna," although it is certainly one of the more prominent ones. --Shruti14talk • sign 18:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

It is certainly one of the more prominent forms of Hindu worship that is centered on the Holy Name and is called Holy Name. Omitting mentioning it on the article specifically dedicated to holy name would be unacceptable. Undue to a mere See also is certainly inapplicable. There is a need of inclusion of for NPOV policy. If you know of any other practice in Hinduism that is referred as a Holy Name please include it here as well. Google search just proving that it is the most common use of the term Holy Name in relation to Krishna is Hare Krishna. Your should not exhibit such a bias, as to remove a mere see also link. Wikidās ॐ 21:47, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

There is no "bias exhibited"; please assume good faith and do not accuse me of doing so. My point was not that Hare Krishna has no merit as a "Holy Name", but rather that it probably shouldn't be in the "See Also" link area, which lists articles that are relevant to the whole section and not just one small part. Sahasranama belongs there since it is relevant to most parts of the section, with there being a Vishnu Sahasranama, multiple Shiva Sahasranamas, Lalita Sahasranama, Ganesha Sahasranama, and so on. Kirtan and Japa are also practiced by multiple groups, namely Vaishnavism and Shaivism. Hare Krishna, however, is for Vaishnavas alone, and even within the Vaishnava tradition is mainly for Krishna devotees, especially those from ISKCON (who made it famous internationally) and other Gaudiya Vaishnava groups. If you like, the information about Hare Krishna can be placed with the information about Krishna, where it would be relevant, but the "See Also" link is not the best place to put it. --Shruti14talk • sign 22:17, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

You see this article is not about gods, it is about Holy Name is the name in traditions or religions that is used in practice or prayer, in this regard Hare Krishna is the prominent practice, and other aspects are not. It has nothing to do with the number of traditions that practice it does it? It refers to Hari (Vishnu) Krishna and Rama not just Krishna. It can also refer to Shiva as Hara. Precisely because its universal and because of its international spread it has to be in the see also. There is nothing in MoS as far as I know stating that See also should refer to all items mentioned in the section, clearly a misunderstanding. Wikidās ॐ 23:02, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

"many religions that do not emphases Names of God are taking precedence over religions that do". Is there some way to neutrally measure how much each religion emphasises names of God? I suspect not. An alphabetic ordering would make more sense.

Religions of X is a universal expression, as for example Buddhism is a religion of India but not the Indian Religion. In some religions use or a reference to the name of God is undocumented or is OR idea, they should not be part of this article. I am yet to find references to use of Holy Name in African religions for example. If a religion is not confirmed by the secondary sources as addressing God with a name being His name or to Holy Name, it should be removed to comply with policies of inclusion.Wikidās ॐ 22:07, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

"Religions of X is a universal expression, as for example Buddhism is a religion of India but not the Indian Religion". If it's exclusively a religion of India, on what grounds is it not an Indian religion?

"In some religions use or a reference to the name of God is undocumented or is OR idea, they should not be part of this article". Maybe, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about your changing the order of the religions. Why is the new order better? Ilkali (talk) 08:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

The grounds of origin is only one way of organising religions (as the case with Buddhism). Most neutral way of doing it is by relevance to the topic, if its not good enough it can be done as per other similar articles. A good example is the Gender of God that lists religions in the progress of historical development as per consensus. Wikidās ॐ 22:01, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you answered either of my questions. Ilkali (talk) 22:08, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

There are a number of religions of India (ie originating from India), however they are not Indian as such. Just as Christianity, Judaism and Islam are religions of the middle east. I guess it would be NPOV to refer to them as such if other world religions are associated with a particular place. New order should reflect relevance to the article core issue, ie the name of God, suggested by the relevance (with some religions not relevant at all and only mentioned in passing). Wikidās ॐ 22:54, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

"There are a number of religions of India (ie originating from India), however they are not Indian as such". Why not? There's certainly one interpretation of Indian that means precisely "from India". What interpretation are you taking?

"New order should reflect relevance to the article core issue". So we return to my original question: How do we objectively assess the relevance? Ilkali (talk) 07:43, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

"How do we objectively assess the relevance? " - objectivity could be a consesus, but lets suggest alphabetical order the the place of origin, I have updated the list to reflect the order according to the "from" factor. That creates a NPOV approach and nobody gets a special mention. Neutral. Wikidās ॐ 08:59, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The list should be NPOV which can be by the origin (not the founder) or by dating as in the Gender of God article. It is not about what is common, it is about what is neutral. Wikidās ॐ 10:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not necessary for religions to be categorised based on where they're from. The point is just to provide intuitive, accessible groupings. People are much more likely to think of Judaism, Christianity, etc as Abrahamic religions than as Middle-Eastern or Semitic religions. There is nothing POV about this. Ilkali (talk) 10:52, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

There no POV in addressing a group of religions by a name of a founder, however if you do not address other in the same manner it is not NPOV. If Abraham is a founder definition, all other religions should be defined in the same manner, ie by a founder or 'no founder'. Only then it will be NPOV. Wikidās ॐ 11:17, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

We are obligated to be selective in how we present content. There is only a POV issue if the underlying criteria put undue favor on a particular point of view, which is not the case here. Ilkali (talk) 11:56, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

One thing is being selective in content selection (ie it has to be verifiable, notable and supported by reliable sources), and completely another thing is categorization. Wikidās ॐ 09:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

You are wrong. Any time we have to order or categorise elements, we have to select a way to do it. We can do it by name, by chronology, by size, etc. What I am suggesting here is that we use familiar, well-understood terms where possible and use geographical divisions as a fallback. Please either demonstrate that this violates NPOV or retract that claim. Ilkali (talk) 09:19, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes we can do it by name, by chronology, by size, location, origin or founder etc., but we can not mix and match the system to favour one group over the other. If every entry is by chronology, one should not give a special treat to one by its location. At present its all grouped by the locality of the origin, not by the founder's name. Wikidās ॐ 07:24, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

"we can not mix and match the system to favour one group over the other". I agree. That is not what is happening here. Currently they are all being treated the same way: They are given familiar groupings if available, or geographical groupings otherwise. It is a consistent system with a sensible rationale. There is no mixing or matching. Ilkali (talk) 08:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

They are not being treated in the same way. If you want to treat them the same way, select one single criteria - at the moment it is country of origin not the founder. Wikidās ॐ 10:06, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

My words: "Currently they are all being treated the same way: They are given familiar groupings if available, or geographical groupings otherwise". If you want to argue for a different categorisation, you have two options: 1) Show that this system is not being applied consistently, or 2) argue that this system does not benefit the reader. Ilkali (talk) 10:16, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The selective system ie if you call only one group of religions by its founder and for some strange reason would not accept the origin of the group is a mistake. What is 'familiar' groupings? Familiar to whom? And its clearly a POV to say that for some religions there are no 'familiar' groupings? Wikidās ॐ 10:23, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Familiar to our readers. Is Christianity more often referred to as a Semitic religion or an Abrahamic one? There are ways we can test that - for example, Google returns about three times more results for "Abrahamic religion".

Also, I think you're conflating different kinds of POV. Acting on opinions about the language we use is unavoidable. You can call that a kind of POV, but it's not the kind addressed by WP:NPOV. If you'd like to suggest other, more familiar names for the groupings we have, I'd be happy to hear them. I think geographical groupings are at best a decent last resort. Ilkali (talk) 10:47, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Since we can not come to an understanding on it, the only way forward is to use the same structure as in other article. Gender of God article is such an article which you were an active editor of and it has a consensus as a far as the structure. Wikidās ॐ 11:31, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Gender of God is ordered chronologically under the assumption that the ideas of gender in earlier religions influenced those in later religions. The same can't quite be applied to names. An alternate way forward is to leave the categorisations in the same state as before you edited them until you can show consensus for change. Ilkali (talk) 11:44, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe that assumption ideas of name in earlier religions influenced those in later religions apply here as well in the same degree. Other two options are by name and size without grouping. Unless an objective criteria for grouping is found of course. Wikidās ॐ 12:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

You believe that the naming of gods in Hinduism contextualises the naming of God in, say, Christianity? How? Ilkali (talk) 13:29, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Not just Hinduism, so other ancient traditions particularly of Egypt. For example: No weight is to be laid on the equation Krsna = Christos, for Krsna was a god before Christ was born. - Epic Mythology With Additions and Corrections: With Additions and Corrections - Page 216 by Edward Washburn Hopkins - 1968; It can be seen from the perspective of Proto-Indo-European religion or from the perspective of Proto-Indo-European language. Wikidās ॐ 22:34, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

it appear that items listed in the Chinese religions section are hardly fitting the description and are more like terms used by other religions in order to compensate for the fact that there is no specific equivalent. Should be moved to Phrases and alternatives. Wikidās ॐ 14:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no evidence since two months as to wether the claims in the section of African religions are true. It appears to be a list of names, that refer to some forms of tribal gods without any sub-articles. The section should be cleaned up to omit OR list. Wikidās ॐ 14:51, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The Shona people of Zimbabwe refer to God primarily as Mwari. They also use names such as Nyadenga in reference to his presumed residence in the 'heavens', or Musikavanhu, literally "the Creator".

The Khoi names for God are much disputed but generally the following are accepted, Thixo,Uthixo, Tsui, Tsui Goab, Gunab, and Touqua although it must be remembered that the actual concept of God may vary from people to people or individual to individual.

The Bushmen or AbaThwa name for God is generally quoted as being /Cagn, the mantis God, however this is also disputed and varies from group to group.

The lead of the article first talks about Names of God in "monotheistic" religions (whatever that is), then contradicts it by "Conceptions of God can vary widely" in the second paragraph, before which there is a breach into "Holy Names", while the bulk of the article is/was about words for God in different religions as if languages were co-eval with religions.

The original intent of this article was Names of God in Sikkhism, which -- within a year -- morphed into Names of God in so-called "monotheism" (and included the word "Christ"!). It then gets progressively weirder (no wonder given its magnetism for OR), leaving us with the mess we have today. That its an OR magnet is not surprising given the 6 billion different definitions of "thingamabob". There is not a shred of proper sourcing either.

Something needs to be fixed. We have (as far as I can see) only two options:

either the article gets renamed to something else (perhaps "List of words ..."), and the silly lead gets fixed appropriately. This approach will however retain the OR magnet effect.

or it gets turned into a disambig ala

Names of God may refer to:

• [[Names of God in Judaism]]

• [[Names of God in the Qur'an|Islam's 99 Names of God]]

• [[Names of God in Old English poetry]]

• [[Sahasranama|Sahasranama - Names of God in Hinduism]]

wherein however "Chinese terms for God" and similar stuff does not have a place.

I do not agree the article is a mess, nor do I accept your implication that monotheism isn't a meaningful term, but I do agree that by its structure this article could easily be {{split}} into a disambiguation page to a discussion of names of God sorted by religious tradition. The problem with this is that in spite of all you say, names for the notion of a singular God tend to come grouped by language, not by religious tradition. viz. Allah is the Arabic for "God" regardless of which flavour of monotheism you happen to prefer. Your objection to "Christ" figuring as a name for God in monotheism, viz. in the particular brand of monotheism that is Trinitarian Christianity, contains the implication that Trinitarian Christianity isn't monotheistic. All Muslims would agree with this, but 99% of Christians would disagree. So there. Protesting a lack of sources for this is disingenious, since the problem is illustrated perfectly adequately at Trinity/Christology. --dab(𒁳) 15:06, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

You missed the point. Its irrelevant what you think monotheism or trinitarianism or whatever is. That is not pertinent to Names.

And treating a protest of a lack of sources as "disingeneous" is inordinately dumb. Wikipedia is not a publisher of your thoughts. The supposition that I should go off and "educate" myself at other -- equally unsourced -- articles, written by (probably) equally uninformed people, is absurd.

If you have an explanation that answers "What exactly is this article about?", then for heaven's sake spit it out. -- Fullstop (talk) 16:20, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Since you are so certain, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt until Friday (so, three days), by which time you ought to be able to meet Wikipedia policy. That is, you ought to be able to come up with with reliable sources for this article, that A) establish that there is a connection between Names and monotheism, and B) for each of those "names" lists.

Should you fail to come up with the necessary sources by that time, the article will be returned to the cleaned-up state, in accordance with the Wikipedia policies on WP:V, WP:OR and WP:RS. -- Fullstop (talk) 19:26, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

The notability of the subject is not under discussion, so pointing out the AfD is not meaningful. I also do not need to seek consensus to enforce Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia policy is already established by consensus. I also do not need to tag, especially since *all* the sections are already tagged with {unreferenced}. So, either address the WP:V, WP:OR etc issues noted above, or the garbage vanishes.

Some of this is sourced, if from other articles. I note that the Rastafari movement article mentions Halie Selassie (sp?) as being God incarnate in the first paragraph, with a citation. I have a feeling that a lot of the items listed might have been arrived at in that way. Having said that, all list articles need to have the items included in the list cited individually. As an alternative to the total removal mentioned above, one thing that has been done in the past elsewhere is remove all uncited material, but place a list of the individual items on the talk page, so that those interested in providing sourcing can more easily see which items were removed and thus have an easier time finding sourcing. I do note that the list isn't particularly complete yet, no big surprise given the number of monotheistic religions out there. As I remember, there were multiple forms of Gnosticism, and I don't remember that they all used the same name. John Carter (talk) 23:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no policy that excuses you from not providing sources for the claims you make. You are obliged to source your claims, without exception. You are also obliged to cite with fidelity, which is not the case for the "citation" that appears in the very first sentence of this article. You still have a few hours to fix the article to conform to policy. -- -- Fullstop (talk) 15:18, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

That is per "one of Wikipedia's core content policies", and applies to material that is unsourced, or inappropriately sourced (which includes out-of-context OR). Material that you do not source is going to vanish, per policy. I have seen no effort from you to improve the situation, and only edit warring and wikilawyering, so the deadline stands. -- Fullstop (talk) 16:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the section quoted by Fullstop above also contains the following statement, "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed, but how quickly this should happen depends on the material in question and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them enough time to provide references, especially in an underdeveloped article. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources oneself that support such material, and cite them." Note that the "reasonable efforts" are not in that specifically limited to the party making the addition. And I have reason to believe that several editors would probably object if the threatened removal in short order were to be undertaken, particularly without having given the specific citations needed templates as is requested. Also, as per WP:NOCITE, we are asked to consider the following in determining what actions to take:

If a claim is doubtful but not harmful to the whole article or to Wikipedia, use the {{fact}} tag, but remember to go back and remove the claim if no source is produced within a reasonable time.

If a claim is doubtful and harmful, you should remove it from the article; you may want to move it to the talk page and ask for a source, unless you regard it as very harmful or absurd, in which case it should not be posted to a talk page either. Use your common sense. All unsourced and poorly sourced contentious material about living persons should be removed from articles and talk pages immediately. It should not be tagged. See Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and Wikipedia:Libel.

I don't see yet how either of those steps has been carried out here, and, personally, the question of the doubtability of some of these statements is at best a minor one, if really even extant. "Grass is often green" geneassrally doesn't need a specific citation either. Therefore, I have to think that, until the proper citation templates are added to the specific items challenged, and by that I mean items, not sections of the article, and all parties involved given time to react, it would probably be a bit of an overreaction to remove material which is not specifically "doubtful". John Carter (talk) 18:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Every section in this article is already tagged with {unreferenced}. What more do you need? Would you like me to tag every sentence? I will wait for your explicit instruction to do so before doing anything of the kind; it is (in my mind) uneccessarily disruptive, and serves no purpose, but will do so if you want it.

I will of course cross-post the expicit instruction to AN/I to ensure that I don't get kicked in the face for following such bizarre POINTy instructions.

This article is completely contrived. Its "doubtful" in the premise (which is flat out false, and inverts the source being cited), and its "doubtful" that anyone who ever added anything here has an informed (read: educated) opinion on "Names of God", instead of what they think "Names of God" are.

I initiated this very talk section one month ago. To date I have yet to receive a coherent reply from anyone. One month is plenty of "time to react". None forthcoming, ergo, the garbage vanishes. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

There can be and is at least to some degree a reasonable cause for there to be a list of names of monotheistic gods, with links to articles about the same. Therefore, I have reason to believe that your conclusion regarding the premise is perhaps, to use your language, "flat-out false". Just out of curiosity, did you call any attention to the discussion elsewhere? I don't remember seeing any, although I at least acknowledge I can and do make mistakes. And perhaps, if you used language which was more clearly in line with WP:CIVILITY and other general conduct guidelines, you might receive answers more to your liking. However, I do believe, in the interests of following policy and guidelines, which is something I would hope we all would like, it would make sense to indicate specifically what sections, by which I mean bullet-points or names within sections, if there are more than one, you have so clearly and judgementally written of as "garbage". Thank you. John Carter (talk)

"a list of names of monotheistic gods" is not the premise of this article. The premise of this article is explictly that

"The Name of God, or Holy Name is the name in monotheistic traditions or religions that is used in liturgy or prayer.[1]"

which is a doubly-false assertion.

there is no correlation between "Name of God/Holy Name" and "monotheistic traditions or religions". Most (if not all) traditions can (and do) construct "Name of God/Holy Name" through prayer.

the source being "cited" does not support that assertion. Indeed, it compares different Name of God prayers in different cultures, both east and west. It even observes that "Some version of the Holy Name prayer is available in most of the major world religions. Herbert Benson has uncovered historic traces of the Holy Name prayer in Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Shamanism, and Taoism. Thus, the Holy Name prayer provides a common ground to explore the deepest dialogue with the Ultimate Other among many of the major world religions."

Thus, what we have is an article with a false premise, and even citing a source that explicitly states the contrary. The contents of the article -- if at all they follow the premise of the lead -- are consequently invalid.

The solution to that is of course the one I stated elsewhere (putting that in a different article per religion, as Islam and Judaism already do). -- Fullstop (talk) 19:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm amazed this is such an issue. Whether a religion should be included should be based on whether it contains a God character (ie, whether it includes as a character the entity described in the God article). This is not a logical consequence of it being monotheistic (or henotheistic, or etc). And these religions should only be discussed in relation to the names they assign to that God character. Ilkali (talk) 13:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Right on. I too was quite amazed to discover that there are people who actually think God characters imply monotheism.

But I don't think that that is an issue here (at least not that I'm aware of). As far as I know (to include the top post in this section and the immediately preceding comment [19:42, 5 August 2009]), the issue here is...

there is no correlation between names and monotheism (or to any other particular conception of God).

Indeed, until 6 April 2009, this article did not say anything of the kind. In the edit that spontaneously made the article be about "something else", the editor not only caused all content to be off-topic, he even caused an otherwise legitimately used source to says the opposite of what it is being cited for. -- Fullstop (talk) 17:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I do see that there are some names on this list which are not technically "names of God", in the sense of names used by worshippers for their God in prayer, etc., but rather names of avatars or incarnations of God, which is a rather different matter. And it is fairly likely that some people would be confused by seeing both kinds of names included in one list. It might be a good idea to separate out the names of avatars from the names of the general name of the god to prevent that sort of confusion. John Carter (talk) 00:22, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Good idea to remove items that relate to not-supreme-Deity, ie names that are not used to address Supreme Being. The idea of one Deity being Supreme Being or equal to Supreme Being is exclusive to a very few traditions that claim to be monotheistic. 92.251.255.15 (talk) 14:21, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

John Carter's observation that worship through names is what qualifies a word as a name is correct. But, such a definition is not practical as a benchmark on Wikipedia since it then includes at least "father", "lord" and "son" and its equivalents in every language into which the Lord's Prayer and/or In Nominem has been translated.

The premise that "Names of God" is somehow tied to "monotheism" is false, and there is no reliable source that would suppose such a thing (least of all the source being "cited", which does not even contain the word "monotheism").

There is also no need (even if it were legitimate) to invent litmus tests for inclusion that no reliable source knows of. There are several (read: dozens) of Hindu and Buddhist prayers that worship through/by names. The genre is called namastotras, lit "name praise". A proper noun that appears in any of these it is by definition a Name of The Divine. -- Fullstop (talk) 16:08, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The premise Fullstop is contending is based on the first sentence of the article, which seems to make it clear that this article is apparently dealing with monotheistic religions. Also, "God" (capitalized) is generally used almost exclusively in monotheistic situations, "god" being used in polytheistic ones. Jupiter, for instance, is rarely if ever called "God". The contention that regular words which are, at times, in some translations, also used as "names" is at best arguable. On that basis, I think that words like "son", "father", etc., are reaonably excluded, as those are not "names" in the conventional sense of that term but more along the lines of titles. Regarding polymorphic monotheism, I know that there is some discussion among some people called "Hindus" about whether Vishnu, Krishna, or someone else is the "original form" or whatever of that entity, but I think that the list should be limited only to those who are contended by someone to be the "original form". I do however still think that perhaps, given the complexity of "Hinduism", that a separate list for that faith might be a good idea, as it could establish a bit better where and in what context a given name is used, and how it might or might not be used on the various candidates for "Supreme Being" in that tradition. Regarding the possibility of listing all the various names given to individual gods in general, I personally think that the main article on that entity, or, in some cases, a subarticle regarding that entity and his/her/its names and their meanings is probably the best way to go. This would also make sense in that some entities which are not considered to be "gods" even if "godlike", like Metatron and, among some branches of Christianity, Mary (mother of Jesus), are given other names as well. But we should definitely differentiate between titles given these entities and names, where that is possible. So, for instance, while Mary is called Our Lady of Perpetual Help, that is generally seen to be a title, not a separate name, and probably should be treated as such here. John Carter (talk) 16:45, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I was addressing the remark of anon, who (apparently) presumed that the first sentence in the article is valid. It is not. Somebody made that up, and the "citation" is a fraud.

Re: capitalization: that is not a meaningful distinction/benchmark. After all, those prayers referred to are not necessarily written in Latin script, or even if so, do not necessarily have a capitalization rule comparable with that of English.

Re: Jupiter: That is a perfect example to demonstrate the flaw in the "monotheistic" and "capitalization" argument. Short version: The assertion that Jupiter is not called "God" falls flat because this article includes a section on Latin deus.

Although I don't necessarily disagree, I don't understand "On that basis ... son/father" conclusion. There was no "basis" previously established for "son/father" etc.

With father/son etc, I was merely pointing out the meaningless of the "by prayer" benchmark on WP. It is a perfectly valid benchmark in the real world (and its an important theological concept) but its not a useful measure to make WP lists with. Deified common nouns are dime-a-dozen, and if father/son etc (how about creator, maker, lord, almighty etc?) are to be excluded, the article ought to restrict itself to words that mean "God" (and nothing else). -- Fullstop (talk) 18:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't follow the logic. How does a list of monotheistic religions become a "substantial cause to include at least the primary name of the monotheistic gods of these groups in this article"?

The a priori assumption that this article is a place for a list of monotheistic gods is not given.

NB: I agree with the principle of the idea, but not with the circumstances.-- Fullstop (talk) 20:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Note well. This makes it the fourth time today that I have had to point out the fallacy. Also note that it was first posted more than 30 days ago, and was the basis for the conversion of this page into a disambiguation. -- Fullstop (talk) 20:40, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

(1) Yes, I know liturgies of the names of God are quite prominent in many religions. Also, the lead does seem to indicate that this article is about such prayers more than about the names themselves. Content regarding such prayers clearly does belong in this article so long as it has the current lead. There are several other faiths which use the same sort of prayers.

(2) An article on the names of God prayers would, however, most likely be best conforming to WP:NC under Names of God prayers, Litanies, or something along those lines. That same policy would indicate that an article by this title would also be one listing the names of "God". As the term "God", both as a singular noun and as a capitalized noun, in standard English usage refers to a monotheistic god, something about the names of such monotheistic gods would seem to be the best choice of content for an article by this name. Granted, such an article itself would probably be best found, by the same policy, at List of names of monotheistic gods. So, in effect, while the content as it exists is not the content most people might expect to see in an article by this name, although I have no way of knowing what they would expect to see, it is probably the content which best reflects the title.

(3) Personal choice would be to have this particular title either turned into a disambiguation page, or create a Names of God (disambiguation) page linked to in a "see also" note at the top of the article, listing the various other articles dealing with the same content. The exact name to give that disambiguation page would itself be a question. Personally, in accord with naming conventions, I would use Names of God as either the title of this article as it more or less presently exists or as a redirect to whatever title this article would be under.

(4) And, yes, I know that there is an entry in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, which can be found at least referenced here, using this name. There are probably similar articles in other such works as well. I myself haven't seen the article in question, so I don't know what it says. I do, however, get the impression from the linked to page that it likely refers to "names of Jehovah", which wikipedia, with has a less Christian focus, reasonably should not have under that name. John Carter (talk) 14:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't follow.

What is it that makes "list of names of monotheistic gods" an inappropriate title for a list of names of monotheistic gods?

(re: the previous post) What is it that makes a list of monotheistic religions become a "substantial cause" for a list of names of monotheistic gods?

I don't think I ever said it was an inappropriate title. In fact, I think I said it was probably a better name. Unfortunately, by the same token, Names of God Prayer or something similar would probably be a better title for that article as well. Like I think I said, I personally would prefer this article under the "list" title. The problem then is what to do with this title. I'm not myself convinced that it should be a disambiguation page, as you proposed, because I have never that I remember seen "Names of God" without "prayer" or some additional word used to describe that sort of Holy Name Prayer. If true, and I'm willing to hear evidence to the contrary, then the simple title "Names of God" would probably, either as a direct title or as redirect, not be somewhere people would look for that article. If there is substantial usage of "names of God" without "prayer" or some other similar additional word to describe the Holy Names Prayers, that would be different, but I've never seen any evidence that there is such usage. If true, that content would probably be better at "Names of God prayer" or some other page that title would be a redirect to. So, basically, although this isn't the name I myself would give the current article, this name is probably most easily understood as being related to this article. And "Names of God prayer" or something similar would probably be most easily understood by most as leading to that article. Sorry for the delay in the response, by the way, but I missed seeing the change on my watchlist my first few times of looking it over today.John Carter (talk) 22:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be arguing that "Names of God" is the only sensible name for a list of monotheistic gods because there is nothing else to put at "Names of God".

Is this a correct summary of your argument? -- Fullstop (talk) 23:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

No. The argument would be more like Names of God should be used possibly as the title for the article, but preferably as a redirect to the article under another, clearer, name, which might be something like List of names of monotheistics gods. Names of God prayer or its equivalent would then be used either as the title for the article on the various sacred name prayers, or as a redirect to wherever that article is located. That is, unless there is evidence that the phrase "Names of God" without the word "prayer" or its equivalent is used fairly often to refer to the prayer, or at least so often that it would be the preferable article for this title, despite the fact that the apparent content of this article, given the title, would be something about the names of God in general, not just about the prayers associated with those names. John Carter (talk) 23:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Huh? Where did that come from? "Name of God prayer" is neither relevant here, nor even hypothetically relevant since there is no existing "Name of God prayer" content that could possibly come here.

So what are you going on about "Names of God prayer" for? As far as I know, there wasn't even ever any suggestion of a "Names of God prayer" content on the horizon. -- Fullstop (talk) 01:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

That "came from" the existing lead of the article, which is, "The Name of God, or Holy Name is the name in monotheistic traditions or religions that is used in liturgy or prayer. Prayer with the Holy Name or Name of God has been established as most common spiritual practice in Western and Eastern spiritual practices." The existing lead seems to make it clearly about the relationship of prayer and the names of god. The Nine Billion Names of God is a work of fiction, and I have no idea how even mentioning that is supposed to be relevant. While some of the points above, indicating that the term is used in other ways, I don't see anything in the existing lead which indicates that they themselves are necessarily relevant to the existing article. John Carter (talk) 21:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: "The existing lead seems to make it clearly about the relationship of prayer and the names of god." As noted often enough, just the mere fact that it "clearly" states it does not make it true.

And, the new addition of a second, off-topic sentence, to "support" (as if) the first sentence does not cause to suddenly become true. The source being cited does not in any way indicate "monotheistic", and indeed explicitly states that the concept is universal.

Moreover, it had already been established (by you!) that "used in liturgy or prayer" was not reflected by the contents of the article, or by its usage on Wikipedia, and that was not how "Names of God" would commonly be understood. As such, the dependency on "used in liturgy or prayer" was already void.

The fact that "Names of God" is also used by real religion articles is itself sufficient reason to have a disambig. When all the "Names of God" articles are considered, it should be obvious that there is no intrinsic connection between "Names of God" and "monotheistic traditions" or to "used in liturgy or prayer". From this other usage, it should be obvious that "relationship of prayer and the names of god" (your words) is not "clear" at all, and that you have in fact been conned.

Additionally, the fact that there are other uses of this title, and the fact that this content cannot stand as a "primary article" in the sense of WP:DISAMBIG, should together be sufficient indication that a "list of monotheistic gods" should be moved to a more appropriate/precise title. Having a precise title is a reason for move, not against it, especially since the definition is invalid. -- Fullstop (talk) 22:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

a premise that this article is about a list of monotheistic gods is not given. The source being "cited" for the introductory statement does not say anything to support what it is being cited for. Indeed, it says the opposite. Since the source being cited actually says the opposite to what it is being cited for, the lead statement is not just dubious, it is flat-out false. When the premise is false, the context is false, and the body of the article is automatically invalid for the context under which appears.

Even the source were not being perverted to say the opposite of what it is being "cited" for, the supposition that "Names of God" are names of monotheistic gods by virtue of being appellatives is fundamentally false. There is no correlation between naming/appellation and monotheism, and I defy anyone to come up with a reliable source that supports the lead's assertion that there is.

More than one month ago (3 July), I noted that there was no valid description for the content of this article (see #1 above), and that it was not possible to discern what this article was about. I noted the complete lack of sources as well. Without a meaningful description, the article was/is a veritable OR magnet, and also without a shred of sourcing to backup any of the assertions being made. For these reasons, I suggested (in the same post) turning the page into a disambig.

On July 16, thirteen days after posting my question and suggestions, and since no responses were forthcoming (a response has not even materialized as of Aug 7), I went ahead and turned the page into a disambig. At that time, every section in the article had had a {nosources} tag for 10 days.

On 4 Aug, i.e. 4 weeks after my posting on talk, and two weeks after I turned the page into a disambig, the page was reverted for no reason.

This mode of thought was then continued by another editor who implied (5 Aug 18:06) that it was really *I* who had not followed due process, viz. that four weeks was "short order" and insufficient "time to react"; that every unsourced item in the list ought to be individually tagged; and that -- despite the fact that I had noted the dubiousness of the premise and claims four weeks earlier (to which there was and is no response) -- it was "a bit of an overreaction to remove material which is not specifically 'doubtful'". The allegation that I was not following due process were reiterated one hour later when it was even implied that I ought to have called "attention to the discussion elsewhere".

As of August 7, we are exactly where we were on July 3. An article without sources, with no valid description/parameters, and attracting OR like a dog does fleas. As before, the article gives license to all and sundry to interpret anything they want anyway they want, and get away with it.

The only thing new is a talk page that is now longer than the article, but in which ...

the question of what the article is about has still (thirty-five days after the initial posting) not been answered. The content of the article, and now the talk page as well, make it abundantly clear that there is in fact no common/shared/universal understanding of the terms being bandied about.

No valid reason has been given for reverts.

Sources from which to draw a definition for "Names of God" that would establish "list of names of monotheistic gods" as the primary article (in WP:DISAMBIG sense, Aug 6, 14:02, #3) have not been provided.

No reason has been given why a universal "list of names of monotheistic gods" has to exist at all. The only argument for such a thing (5 Aug, 19:46) held that the existence of a list of monotheistic religions was a reason for the existence of a list of names of monotheistic gods.

No reason has been given why a completely unsourced and arbitrary list of anything should be considered worth keeping, or why WP:V, WP:OR, WP:RS suddenly do not apply.

The above statement contains several obvious errors of fact. Reasons have been given for some points, whether the above editor agrees with those reasons or not, Such commentary as the above is very regretable. And, yes, on pages which apparently have very few active people watching them, such as this one, it would be only rational for someone to try to alert other interested parties to the discussion. Again, to the best of my knowledge, no such effort has been made by the above party in the month he states he has been waiting for answers. Base don his own conduct to date, the above editor seems more interested in complaining and insulting than in taking reasonable, apparently indicated, steps to resolve the matter. I cannot see how the fault for that is to be seen as lying with anyone else. John Carter (talk) 20:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Diffs please instead of "very regretable" and so on and so forth. I diff'd, to point out what I perceive to be logic errors. If there are logic errors on my part, then it would be more meaningful to cite them, instead of just making claiming that they exist.

Similarly, if there were insults made then I would like to see quotations of them, and not just allegations that they were made. Assuming, that is, that those "insults" are more substantial than something on the lines of "it would be only rational" (which is an implication that I am not rational).

John Carter seems to suppose that Wikipedia is a bureaucracy where "it would be only rational for someone to try to alert other interested parties to the discussion". Alas, I do not recognize it as "rational", or reflecting any injunction that would necessitate such an action.

That some may prefer to chit-chat instead of editing is a matter of preference. I do not belong to this group. As it were then, the supposition that I need do more than wait (which I did) does not wash. It seems more likely that this is again to assert that I do not follow due process and/or to distract from policy violations, assertions of consensus without having any etc.

If I say I see things in a certain way, then it hardly behooves another editor to suppose that I have no right (or do not deserve) to see things that way. I'm willing to be convinced to the contrary, but a mere statement to the extent of "you're wrong" is not a convincing argument. -- Fullstop (talk) 21:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

If I have made "complaints", these are complaints of inadequacy, but which -- evidently -- were not deemed to be important enough to respond to. If that is the case, then one could hardly be faulted for thinking that one was being brushed off. If (after 35 days now) there has been a rational and coherent explanation of what this article is about, and why it should exist, and why the unreferenced material should be retained, and why it should not be elsewhere, and why a disambig is such a bad idea, then please point to it (or summarize it such that it becomes coherent). A few sentences per point ought to suffice. Note that -- at this point -- I am no longer willing to accept personal opinion/WP:IDONTLIKEIT as an argument. So back up assertions with citable sources please. -- Fullstop (talk) 21:43, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: "it is about Names of God in different languages and different religions"

a) please specify what you mean by "it" to ensure that "everyone" knows what "it" is.

b) how do you know that this is the definition of "it"? And why/how should "everyone" know this?

c) what is the basis of this definition? Do you have a source that has discussed "names of God in different languages and different religions"? Alternatively, do you have individual sources that discuss "names of God" in individual languages and individual religions? If so, are all these sources talking about the same thing?

Say, what? I did not say anything about "It depends on what the definition of it is".

I asked you what "it" you were referring to in your claim "it is about...". A monologue about "it" being "it" does not answer the question.

You are not in a position to judge lack of understanding. You refuse to even answer the simplest possible questions (e.g. "please specify what you mean by 'it'"). The mere fact that you respond to simple "what is" questions with vague hand-waving "look there" is not conducive to understanding.

Further, you do not have the capacity to censor opinion. The issues are stated in the top post of this talk section. If you do not understand any of them, point out what you do not understand and I will explain. Telling me to piss off is not an option available to you. -- Fullstop (talk) 13:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

If you have "already answered the question the question on what is the subject of the article", then I'm not sure why you can't do so again. I'm afraid that I cannot determine the validity of a claim until you make it clearly. This means: please make your claim in a coherent English language sentence with an unambiguous subject, predicate and object, and with appropriate citation of sources to support the validity of your claim.

I do not understand the relevance of your allusion to wikilinks. The relevance of a repetion of "AfD", "notable" escapes me as well. If these are not digressions, please explain their relevance the next time you refer to them.

I am obliged to assume that you have trouble with the question, and/or have trouble recognizing the need for the question (see first point in this talk section). So, please take the following sentences as a template of what an appropriate declaration might look like. All you need to do is fill in the blanks with information that you have (supposedly) already provided.

(e.g.) The definition of "Names of God" is X as stated in source A, [B, C...], as per quotations Aq, [Bq, Cq...].

Such an answer would be a rational and coherent explanation of what you suppose an article under the title "Names of God" is about, and/or what you would like it to be about.

After that, you should be able to claim

(e.g.) The lead of the content presently under the title "Names of God" follows that same definition X.

After that, you should be able to claim

(e.g.) The individual subsections use sources that follow the same definition X.

Much of this is only necessary because you insist that the content is an article (not a list), and because you insist that the content must reside at the title it has (instead of being at individual articles, which everything but the section on Hinduism already is).

Actually, definitions for the expression "Name of God" do exist, but they would not meaningful unless they described the current content. So, no, that is not what I was asking for.

This is the problem (as far as a description goes):

The current description of the content (as provided by the first sentence) effectively states that 'Names of God are names of monotheistic gods (named through address)'. It is an intrinsically false statement. There is no correlation between names and monotheism, and the source being "cited" is being abused to say the opposite of what it really says.

Someone suggested that the content was a "list of names of monotheistic gods". This is true for significant portions of the content, but is neither reflected in the title nor in the lead (except for the first sentence which -- as noted -- is invalid).

Prior to April 6, the lead indicated that the content was about appellation/address. This is a valid definition of the title, but is not a valid description of the content.

As it stands then (and not even touching on the difference between words and names), the content does not match the title and/or does not match the description.

The simplest solution is to side-step the problem altogether. A) Move the Sikhism and Hinduism stuff to their own articles (the rest already have their own dedicated articles). B) Make a list of links to the dedicated articles. C) Done. -- Fullstop (talk) 23:22, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

WTF? What part of "the content does not match the title and/or does not match the description" do you not understand?

What part of "Prior to April 6, the lead indicated that the content was about appellation/address. This is a valid definition of the title, but is not a valid description of the content" do you not understand?

Do you have a reason for adding that and even adding more non-sequitur material to the lead? Other than to demonstrate that you know how to search the web, is there anything in common between the individual sentences? Or between them and the title/definition? Or between them and the content? Do you have perhaps not understand the concept of WP:No original research?

PLEASE ADDRESS WHAT I JUST SAID, and please refrain from trying to read my mind, or from talking about the price of tea in China. -- Fullstop (talk) 16:15, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I have many times pointed out that there is a lack of correlation, and have also described why it should not be done, and have also described two different solutions. Consequently, the bizarre statement that "title corresponds to the content" amounts to severe obtuseness.

As for "It appears you just do not like this list": I have already asked you not to try to read my mind. Such comments merely reinforce the impression that you believe you can undermine this encyclopedia and get away with it. You cannot.

But "It appears you just do not like this list" does demonstrate that you have recognized that it is a list. So, miracles do happen. But its just all the more reason to wonder why you insist on treating it as an thematic subject. Its tantamount to listing the names of your pets under the title working dogs. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Do any of the sources that treat it as a thematic subject have a list? If not, or if those lists do not include your pet puppies, then its a problem. For more information, see WP:No original research. -- Fullstop (talk) 23:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Please explain how you concluded that I am "coming down" to OR when in fact I have referred to exactly that issue in virtually every comment here (including in my very first post to this talk page, and in the top post in this talk section).

To support the outrageous claim that "In reality there is no OR", and to address what I have been pointing it out all the while, please provide (here on talk) a literal quotation for each statement that you "sourced".

1. That I have been referring to your original research the entire time, but that you have ignored it/have evaded addressing it.

2. That "In reality there is no OR" is a tall claim since I have been referring to OR all the while. So, please provide (here on talk) a literal quotation for each statement that you "sourced".

3. That "The generic list is given in Miriam Bokser Caravella" is a false claim. So, please provide (here on talk) a literal quotation for each statement that you "sourced".

As usual, you have not adressed any of them. Please address them. Evasion/Saying you won't address them is not at an option. -- Fullstop (talk) 16:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

There were three points made.

(you made a few points before, I take it that you withdrew all others)

1. That I have been referring to your original research the entire time, but that you have ignored it/have evaded addressing it.

(I have not added a single instance of OR to this article. Any specific instance of OR should be addressed. I do not accept that topic is OR as there are lots of sources to it. Incidentally I removed some OR already from the article as per above discussion)

2. That "In reality there is no OR" is a tall claim since I have been referring to OR all the while. So, please provide (here on talk) a literal quotation for each statement that you "sourced".

(each statement added is sourced)

3. That "The generic list is given in Miriam Bokser Caravella" is a false claim. So, please provide (here on talk) a literal quotation for each statement that you "sourced".

(the source is not reliable, it is not a 'false claim' - there are plenty of other sources, so for the sake of discussion lets leave this one aside. It was not actually used in the article as yet.

(I suspect that you do not want to listen, eg. you have already formed an opinion and will not want to change it no matter what but that is what you call 'reading your mind' and you really do not like it, do you?)

The claim that "The generic list is given in Miriam Bokser Caravella" was a patently false claim.

It demonstrated A) that you do not have the source, B) that you claim things that are patently untrue, D) that you fake citations, E) that you make things up, F) that you do original research, G) that your "research" amounts to nothing more than entering search terms into Google.

>> "(I suspect that you do not want to listen ..."

Since I have (several times) explicitly stated my reasons, the repeated wild speculation merely reinforces the impression that you like to "interpret".

>> "All my future replies to you will be of one sentence long on that basis"

Please answer the question. Evasion is also a refusal to provide a proper rationale for what has been challenged / to provide quotations etc. Since you may not be aware of this, I will put the question to you a fourth and last time.

Note that this is an extreme courtesy. The "All my future replies to you will be of one sentence long", which you have thrice refused to retract, is already an explicit statement that you refuse to honor your obligations.

The next evasion will be recognized as an explicit refusal to source properly / to provide a proper rationale for what has been challenged / to provide quotations etc.

This is the fourth time in a row that I have put this question to you. It is also the last time. The next evasion/refusal to address issues / to source properly / to provide quotations etc, will be recognized as an explicit refusal to honor your obligations. -- Fullstop (talk) 00:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

In the above talk, I repeatedly asked for proper sourcing, for quotations that show that the "sources" were not being misused, to show the relationship between obviously unrelated sentences, to define whatever it is that this "article" is about. None of these were addressed (and indeed were explicitly refused to be addressed). After having waited an additional six days for WP:V/WP:NOR to be honored, during which time no attempt was made to do so, I have now removed the material cobbled together from web searches by Wikidas. An archive of that material is provided in the "box" following this comment. -- Fullstop (talk) 09:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Unverifiable/OR lead, cobbled together from web searches by Wikidas.

The Name of God, or Holy Name is a form of addressing God present in a majority of world religions as used in liturgy or prayer.[1][2] Prayer with the Holy Name or the Name of God has been established as most common spiritual practice in Western and Eastern spiritual practices.[2] A number of traditions that have lists of many names of God which enumerate God's various qualities. The Qur'an contains the Ninety-Nine Most Beautiful Names of Allah, Judaism refers to 72 Divine Names and the Mahabharata contains a thousand names of Vishnu.[3]

The English word God is used by multiple religions to refer to different deities.[4]

Eastern and Western correlation and intercultural interpretations of the philosophy of the Name of God have been a subject of study for thinkers in the east and west.[5] The names of God in different traditions are sometimes referred as symbols.[6] The question of whether divine names used by different religions are equivalent has been raised and analyzed. [7]

Exchange of symbols of religion between different traditions is limited; the usage of the names of God mostly remain in the domain of a particular religion, such as in the case of recitation the names of God (japa).[8]The Divine Names, the classic treatise by Pseudo-Dionysius defines scope of traditional understandings in Western traditions such as Hellenic, Christian, Jewish and Islamic that concern the Names of God,[9] with further historical interfaith lists such as The 72 Names of the Lord showing parallels in history and interpretation of the list of the names of God in Kabbalah, Christianity, Hebrew and Slavic, Palestine, Balkans and Provence etc.[10]

One definition of the Name of God was given by Elisha Mulford as 'that name which passes into the common forms of thought'. The author states that in its derivation it may have an ethical significance.[11] While others suggest that the "name of God represents the nature of God".[12] An early Greek theological treatise De Mundo, initially ascribed to Aristotle, outlines brief theological basis of philosophical understanding of the oneness of God in the context of Hellenistic thought. It ends with a statement on God and his names, "God being one yet has many names, being called after the various conditions he himself inaugurates."[13] In many cultures, the transmission of the name of God was surrounded by secrecy. The pronunciation of the Name of God in Judaism has always been guarded with great care. It is believed that in ancient times the sages communicated the pronunciation only once every seven years.[14]. This system was challenged by more recent movements. The nature of the name can be described as personal and the attributive. In many cultures it is often difficult to distinguish between the personal and the attributive names of God, the two divisions necessarily shading into each other.[15]Martin Buber, a Jewish mystic, provides more clarity on the interfaith perspective when he writes "all God's names are hallowed", which is also reflected in a traditional view of many Hindus and Buddhists, who maintain the same about the names of God, suggesting that there are "many ways to the truth".[16]

Anyone of the editors can help to work out a better lede based on the text below. All suggestions are welcomed, the sources are rather very close to the text of original, but it better to stick close to the matter in my opinion.

The Name of God, or Holy Name is a form of addressing God present in a majority of world religions as used in liturgy or prayer.[1][2] Prayer with the Holy Name or the Name of God has been established as most common spiritual practice in Western and Eastern spiritual practices.[2] Number of traditions that have lists of many Names of God which enumerate his various qualities have a special mention. The Qur'an contains the Ninety-nine Most Beautiful Names of Allah, Judaism refers to 72 Divine Names and Mahabharata text contains a thousand names of Vishnu.[17]

The English word God is used by multiple religions to refer to different deities.[4]

Eastern and Western correlation and intercultural interpretations of the philosophy of the Name of God had been as subject of study for thinkers in the east and west.[18] In Christian theology the Word must be a personal and a proper name of God; hence it cannot be dismissed as mere metaphor.[19] On the other hand, the Names of God in a different tradition are sometimes referred as symbols.[20] The question whether divine names used by different religions are equivalent has been raised and analyzed. [21]

Exchange of symbols of religion between different traditions, is limited, symbols of religious core are shared (for example Om and Gayatri by members of Indian Christian community) but the usage of the names themselves mostly remain in the domain of a particular religion, such as in the case of recitation the names of God (japa).[22]The Divine Names, the classic treatise by Pseudo-Dionysius defines scope of traditional understandings in Western traditions such as Hellenic, Christian, Jewish and Islamic that concern the Names of God,[23] with further historical interfaith lists such as The 72 Names of the Lord showing parallels in history and interpretation of the list of the Name of God in Kabbalah, Christianity, Hebrew and Slavic, Palestine, Balkans and Provence etc.[24]

One definition of the Name of God was given by Elisha Mulford as 'that name which passes into the common forms of thought'. The author states that in its derivation it may have an ethical significance.[25] While others suggest that the "name of God represents the nature of God". [26] The attitude as to the transmission of the Name in many cultures was surrounded by secrecy. The pronunciation of the Name of God, in Judaism, has always been guarded with great care. It is believed that in ancient times the sages communicated the pronunciation only once every seven years.[27]. This system was challenged by more recent movements. The nature of the name can be described as personal and the attributive. In many cultures it is often difficult to distinguish between the personal and the attributive names of God, the two divisions necessarily shading into each other.[28]

^Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: a commentary on the texts and an introduction to their influence. Oxford University Press, 1993, p.163 ISBN 0195076648

^Valentina Izmirlieva, All the names of the Lord: lists, mysticism, and magic, University of Chicago Press, 2008 ISBN 0226388700

^Elisha Mulford The republic of God: An institute of theology‎ p.5 1882 "The name of God is that name which passes into the common forms of thought. In its derivation it may have an ethical significance."

^Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: a commentary on the texts and an introduction to their influence. Oxford University Press, 1993, p.163 ISBN 0195076648

^Valentina Izmirlieva, All the names of the Lord: lists, mysticism, and magic, University of Chicago Press, 2008 ISBN 0226388700

^Elisha Mulford The republic of God: An institute of theology‎ p.5 1882 "The name of God is that name which passes into the common forms of thought. In its derivation it may have an ethical significance."

I noticed that the article is partially organised by language, and partially organised by religion. Can we pick one or the other? Personally, I think organising by religion/deity would make the most sense. Listing translations of the word "God" in different languages seems more the purview of Wiktionary. --Alynna (talk) 12:48, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

God (word) is just a dictionary definition of 'God', whereas this article is about all the names of God in the abstract, and so is encyclopedic (encyclopedias are about abstract concepts not words, that's what dictionaries are for), so they should be merged I think; it's seems to be either that or AFD God (word).- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:54, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

But the article looks like it would fit in fine here to me.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:55, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

In the wikipedia I only have to show that it is an article about a word, and that the Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary disallows that; and you just admitted that it is an article on a word.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:40, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. This article is about a list of names of God in different religions. The article God (word) is much more than a dictionary definition. warrior4321 22:34, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. God (word) is a fairly detailed article. It could use some cleanup, but an article about the specific name "God" seems encyclopedic, given that it's probably the most common English name for God. We can have a section in Names of God on the name "God", with God (word) as the "main article" for that section; that would help make Names of God an article written in summary style rather than a list of names of God by religion. --Alynna (talk) 13:14, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

oppose, more than enough material for a standalone article. --dab(𒁳) 10:19, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Support This article is intended to equate all the gods.--478jjjz (talk) 00:53, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Just taking a quick look at the article section 'taboos'. And it seems to be from a somewhat religious point of view. "More pious swearers try to substitute the blasphemy against holy names with minced oaths like Jeez!" Just because someone swears with 'Jeez' hardly means they're purposely trying to substitute blasphemy against holy names.

"Most observant Jews forbid discarding holy objects" I'm less sure of my arguments against this one, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding it, but it seems to somewhat belittle any Jew who forgets he is not meant to be discard objects such as these is not 'observant'.

Perhaps there's more. It's also very possible I'm being too picky. But some of this article does seem to be a little iffy. Thoughts? --86.27.90.244 (talk) 19:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I think both of those facts should be in there, but probably worded better. --Alynna (talk) 13:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Why are Christianity and Islam listed as African and not Abrahamic religions???[edit]

Is that simply an error in the section heading levels? I'd move the sections myself, but I'm not familiar with the history of this page and don't want to intrude on your territory. Aristophanes68 (talk) 05:04, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, Jehovah's Witnesses are at least as Christian as Roman Catholics. Is there a reason why the sect is listed under "Other religions" rather than under "Christianity"? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 14:15, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

This article needed extensive grammatical correction and both the intro and the section on Abrahamic tradition contained much OR which I have taken pains to extensively rewrite. I could not find any cite on the web for the claim that YHWH is pronounced AEIOU. A cite is provided for the claim that Yahweh be pronounced Ιαου in Greek, but that was mentioned elsewhere in the article; perhaps the author of this claim was going off of some sort of personal revelation. Yow! I think I was charitable in rewriting and not deleting as much as I did.

"The earliest mention of the name of God is found in the Koran sura 2, The Cow;`When your Lord said to the angels: 'I am placing on the earth one that shall rule as My deputy,' they replied: 'Will You put there one that will do evil and shed blood, when we have for so long sung Your praises and sanctified Your Name?' It is only fairly recently that it's been determined that life on earth probably exceeds 3.4 billion years and certainly there is a likelihood that the creation of the angels predates that. The phrase 'so long' is both extremely literal as well as an amazing understatement. During the lifetime of Adam and Eve, the record from the Bible indicates that the name of God was used, but by the time Moses was born the scriptures show that none of mankind still knew the Name. Perhaps an argument could be made that this knowledge was lost at the time of Noah, when only he and his relatives survived the flood.

"The Torah further describes the role of Aaron who acted as Moses' mouthpiece and conveyed the Name of God distinctly as 'AEIOU' to the Israelites. The pronunciation of 'AEIOU' is described in Psalms 8.2 by the prophet who wrote, 'Thou hast made babes, infants at the breast sound aloud Thy praise.' The power of the name AEIOU in its unique ability to allow the creation of all words in every human language is evident and befitting God and conveys the absolute infinite potential of God's character. In what is commonly referred to as the 'New Testament' God is referred to by a slightly abbreviated form as the 'Alpha and Omega', the beginning and the end, literally and figuratively.

"This name constitutes the First Commandment and embodied in the rest of the Ten Commandments is the rest of the alphabet as revealed by God to Moses and Aaron, ultimately replacing for the first time the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians and making writing based on a lettered alphabet possible. At the completion of Soloman's Temple the name of God was made unlawful; its public use was punishable by death by the Jews living at the time. 'Allah' was the only name which has been preserved and has continued to be used throughout the middle east. A simple google/ youtube search, 'infant cry' provides the best pronunciation as mentioned by Psalms 8.2. In the New Testament the reference is Matthew 21.16."

"Legendary English rock musician, Eric Clapton, is often referred to as God with the common slogan "Clapton is God".

All is article is article is accomplishing is basically giving linguistic translations [albeit some into phrases and ideas] of the idea that, in English, is written as "God". Wikipedia is not a reference of translation lists; and, despite how some people feel about the idea of "God," said idea should be treated the same as all others in the eyes of an encyclopedia. If Wikipedia is to have this article, then all other ideas should be represented in articles titled "Names of [insert idea]", in which said idea is then linguistically translated into all other possible languages.

except the very idea of the names is a cultural artifact, and has notability through coverage.192.249.47.196 (talk) 19:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

This isn't just a list of translations. Etymology is a very important tool for understanding language, and this page does a pretty good job at showing how the various names for God evolved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.23.50.237 (talk) 22:26, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I may have just not studied enough, but I have never seen heard of these two names being used in the passages quoted (I always read that it was simply "I AM" in that passage), and a search through the specific "Names in Judaism" article, as well as just searching "AEIOU" on wikipedia, gives no relevant results. The section this claim appears in is bulleted and reads somewhat out of place, and is not supported by a source; furthermore, searching for "AEIOU god" or "AEIOU god moses" only gets me sites that copy that passage straight from wikipedia. Is it possible that these are vandalism?192.249.47.196 (talk) 19:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Adi Purush is currently a redlink, though there is an Adi Purusha article, which is a redirect to Svayam Bhagavan. However, I'm not familiar enough with the subject to know which is the correct spelling (with or without the a) and whether the redirected article describes the same concept, and so I've not done anything. Can someone more knowledgeable help? —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 21:19, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

In section 2, Abrahamic Religions, the statement is made: "According to the Bible, the name of God was used during the lifetime of Adam and Eve, but by the time Moses was born, the scriptures imply that none of mankind still knew the name." I believe this to be incorrect. I believe that the name of God was in continuous use from the time of Adam and Eve up to the time period identified with Exodus 3:13-15 and beyond. For example, Noah (Genesis 9:26), Abraham (Genesis 15:8), Lot (Genesis 19:18) and Job (Job 1:21) used the name of God, Jehovah, in conversations with the Most High and others. The original Hebrew shows the divine name in these and many other instances during this time period. Translators into English have chosen to convert it to the word "Lord". Other translators have left the divine name in. Can we agree to remove the entire sentence after the word "Eve"? Now'n'Them (talk) 20:28, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Take the following paragraph. "The earliest mention of the name of God in the Koran is found sura 2, The Cow: "When your Lord said to the angels: 'I am placing on the earth one that shall rule as My deputy,' they replied: 'Will You put there one that will do evil and shed blood, when we have for so long sung Your praises and sanctified Your Name?'. During the lifetime of Adam and Eve, the record from the Bible indicates that the name of God was used, but by the time Moses was born the scriptures show that none of mankind still knew the Name. Perhaps an argument could be made that this knowledge was lost at the time of Noah, when only he and his relatives survived the flood. When Moses first spoke with God and asked His Name, God said, "I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not let myself be known by My Name." When Moses heard the name of God he realized that since he had a speech impediment as a result of a harelip, he was unable to pronounce it accurately. He was able to say "Allah" and that was the name conveyed to Pharaoh and the Egyptians and the name Allah was referenced from that point in time till today. Further details in the Torah describe the role of Aaron who acted as Moses" mouthpiece and conveyed the Name of God distinctly as "YHWH" to the Israelites. The pronunciation of YHWH is described in Psalms 8.2 by the prophet who wrote, "Thou hast made babes, infants at the breast sound aloud Thy praise.""

There are no references what so ever in there apart from a reference to Psalms near the end, and some vague reference to the Koran at the start.

It should either be referenced, or fixed, or removed, as sentences like "Perhaps an argument could be made that this knowledge was ......" make it look like opinion.